With senior Justin Spring missing from Illinois’ lineup this Saturday when it took on No. 9 Minnesota at home, the team knew others would need to step up in his absence. Senior Adam Pummer did just that, winning three event titles on floor exercise, high bar and parallel bars to help the Illini defeat the Golden Gophers by a score of 207.300 to 201.650.

Pummer, a six-time All-American, led the Illini (5-1, 4-1 Big Ten) on four events and provided the spark for a team coming off a second-place finish in its opening meet in Chicago on Jan. 14.

“When there’s one person missing that’s your top score in every event, everybody’s going to have to pull together,” Pummer said. “So I think everybody pulled together, knowing we couldn’t have one lax score.”

Head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said that it was Pummer who showed the necessary leadership, and that he turned in one of his better competitions on Saturday.

With Pummer’s 9.150 on floor and team score of 34.450, Illinois took the lead after its first rotation on floor exercise and never trailed.

Although Hayasaki was hoping the Illini would put up a total team score of over 210 points, it was only pommel horse that significantly lowered the score. Three Illini fell off the apparatus, which contributed to their 32.550, the lowest team score of the meet.

Sophomore Wes Haagensen was one of the bright spots on pommel horse, as he claimed the event title with a score of 8.450 -ÿhis second event title on the young season.

After shaky performances on both pommel horse and still rings, Pummer said the Illini “were starting to die off.”

“We had a quick talk and decided we had to come back hard for the next two events, because the meet wasn’t going to be easy,” Pummer said. “So we knew we had to hit the last two, three events and keep our energy up.”

The Illini scored a meet-best 36.200 on vault off Pummer’s 9.150 and Haagensen’s 9.100. While Haagensen said the Illini still need a better percentage of hits, the team is headed in a positive direction.

“Everyone’s doing what they need to be doing; we’re on the right track,” he said. “I think it’s just we need a little more time before it all comes together.”

With a positive end to the meet on parallel bars and high bar, the Illini now turn their focus to next week’s meet against No. 1 Ohio State.

“The next couple weeks are a much more intense amount of training this year than we’ve had in the past couple weeks,” said sophomore Chris Silcox, who gave the Illini a much-needed boost on pommel horse and parallel bars, with scores of 8.000 and 8.450, respectively, along with a 8.850 on high bar.

Going into Columbus next weekend, Hayasaki is concerned with his team hitting its routines “in Ohio State territory” after not sticking them at Huff Hall.

“It’s going to be a showdown against Ohio State,” Hayasaki said, “but once we can put up our normal lineup, I think we will be OK.”